Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Misinformation and building a house. 21Feb 11, 2009 7:40 pm I’m now wondering where the lazy writer is? Internal and External Building and Colour Consultant Online - Worldwide http://www.denovoconcepts.com Re: Misinformation and building a house. 22Feb 11, 2009 8:50 pm OMG!!
I'm heading to HI on Saturday for my first look....may the force be with me I'm building in the Access range though, so hopefully less issues. This is also why I haven't really have more than a glance at the colour samples given to me by my PD sales rep - I don't want to fall in love with certain colours if they aren't in my standard range. 'A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.' Louis Pasteur Vegie garden: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27637&start=0 My Backyard Adventure Re: Misinformation and building a house. 23Feb 12, 2009 12:41 pm lisanne OMG!! I'm heading to HI on Saturday for my first look....may the force be with me I'm building in the Access range though, so hopefully less issues. This is also why I haven't really have more than a glance at the colour samples given to me by my PD sales rep - I don't want to fall in love with certain colours if they aren't in my standard range. I got my color samples and it came with a binded book from hopetoun interiors listing what is standard/cat 1 and what are higher catergories. Didn't you get this book? Re: Misinformation and building a house. 24Feb 12, 2009 2:08 pm WOW that sounds terrible!
That was one of the reasons why we didnt go with PD. They do have beautiful houses, but by everything was an upgrade, and it wasnt cheap either! We are with Carlisle homes and all paint colours are standard, as long as you have one colour throughout the house. So you can pick a bright brilliant red, and as long as its on all the walls, it's standard! Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Misinformation and building a house. 25Feb 12, 2009 2:48 pm That's sounds horrible.
Another reason why we didn't build with Pretty Disappointing Here's an idea, build with Henley Customer service has been exceptional for us, and the colour selection with Cosham Interiors was a great experience. We had a wonderful colour consultant, and Cosham was open for us to browse as much we liked before our appointment (why would they put restrictions on that sort of thing???). The consultants in there were always willing to assist and they knew exactly what is and what isn't included. I have friends who are building. They have experienced the same issues with PD and have crossed them off their list. Highly specced display homes look great, but when you actually understand what you are paying for, you can save nearly $25k with other builders for the same thing - I know because we are!! Re: Misinformation and building a house. 26Feb 16, 2009 5:36 pm Apologies, Michelle, for not replying sooner. We've been doing lots of house-related things in the last week and I haven't been online much.
I call myself lazy, yes, but I sort of go by the motto, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time." (Oh, the power of editing.) The funny thing is that we had our contracts appointment today. When we opened it and saw that the price of our house had jumped from 179,366 to 194,550 JUST from the colour appointment, we sort of freaked out. We calmed down a little when we realised that half of the upgrades we'd negotiated prior to colours and contracts that we ended up deleting before signing the final quotation (ie replacing carpet in family/dining with tiles) were still in the contract, and we were being charged for our driveway and landscaping TWICE. But we ended up only being charged $792 total for five feature walls, which was a lot better than we expected. Then again, some of the things we'd requested had been done incorrectly or not done at all. By the end of it, we discovered that our colour consultant, whom we thought was our genius saviour who really knew her stuff, was wrong about the ensuite basin. So at least that's something. We get the big square one without having to pay for it and I'm happy about that. On the other hand, there were so many variations from the contract being written up incorrectly that our CSO today simply ended up redoing it entirely during our appointment. Once the unwanted upgrades were removed, and the double-charge for driveway was removed, while the missed ones were incorporated AND we included our tile variation allowance, we came in at 189,339. Better, but still. It remains a mystery how our cabinet door upgrade from the square vinyl doors to a combination of slightly more attractive doors from the same range came in at a whopping $4,392 alone. We have six overhead cabinet doors, four lower drawers, and fourteen lower doors as standard, so I figure that roughly, each door had to have cost between $150 to $200 more than the standard door: * Country square to all lower cabinet doors (14) * Country arch to 2 upper cabinet doors, being the ones directly above the slideout rangehood * Arch 4-pane to 2 upper cabinet doors, being the ones on either side of the slideout rangehood I'm not even sure how they do the drawers, exactly, whether it counts as one door or more, but it's effectively saying all these doors are at least $150 each MORE than the standard and some are a lot more than that. Damn. And no one in the world seems to have itemised prices for Laminex doors. Such things would encourage buyers to make informed decisions, and we can't have that! It was still good... And then came the part where I really wanted to hit someone over the head. It's all about facades, really, it is. Now, it's easy for them to say "oh but it's written in your quotation" except that it's not, because our quotation doesn't list anything about facade features except "provide Barwon facade $1250". The new quotation, which I suppose is a revised document created since we signed our own revised quote a few months ago, does have a single line about "render feature as per promo (front projection)" within one of the innovation lists. The thing that annoys me the most is that everyone at PD is slippery about it. I mean, they all mean well, they're all very nice and I don't think anyone is intentionally dopey, but when it comes to the facade elements it's almost like THEY don't even know until they see a working drawing. The problem, essentially, is that during our colour appointment, we were told our facade constituted the portico piers and portico itself, and that the bit that was the "front projection" was literally the area of portico that projected out and nothing more. Today, it did in fact turn out that the front windows would be rendered, BUT because one of the portico piers is joined to the rest of the house, it counts as front projection, and, you guessed it, portico piers should be portico PIER, being that there's only one, and it's not joined onto the rest. It gets better. Despite the fact the Barwon photos have both portico pier-ish bits rendered, the quote/contract hasn't allowed for both sides to be rendered. So we were going to end up with the portico pier that's apparently really front projection RENDERED, and the actual portico pier next to it NOT RENDERED. So after all that work fixing the contract, we had to add on another variation of $420 to cover rendering the portico PIER, singular, to match the one right next to it, because our CSO insisted that we were absolutely not entitled to it. Unfrickingbelievable. And if we hadn't wondered briefly why the working drawings had render-speckles on one portico pier and not on the other, we wouldn't have known till building time. This is the only page on the PD website that shows a photo of the Barwon facade: http://www.porterdavis.com.au/#homeviewer/flemington/v (click on the little green button in the bottom left of the main frame that says Barwon; because they are using flash and javascript I can't give a direct link, which is probably their attempt to avoid people stealing pictures). Both piers are rendered in this photo, as is the whole front of the house. So, for us, the pier closest to the garage is actually the pier, and the one nearest the windows is part of the front projection, and they wanted to render the one near the windows, but not the one near the garage. Hideous! A few people asked why stay with PD if it's been infuriating in parts. Well, for a start, house building is stressful, even if you have the best company in the entire world building for you. Regardless of how well-informed everyone is, there will be misunderstandings all around. I think generally this comes about particularly because when you work 9-5, five days a week on a particular job, you start to take certain parts of information for granted, and you don't realise it's something the owners might feel is important until the point where you get feedback complaining you didn't tell them. This is less so with the people who actually key the details in, and moreso with the people introducing you to the concepts: the first salesperson, the colour hostesses, etc. Expect them to be wrong, and don't get your heart set on ANYTHING based on what they say, except having four walls and a roof on a concrete slab. And it is hard for them, because if you complain about someone else's service, while it might be their inclination to agree or disagree one way or another, they simply have to remain neutral and not provide an opinion, because they cannot be seen to badmouth their co-workers or be rude to customers. It's a no-win situation, even if they see that one party is clearly in the wrong. Beyond that, the salespeople and colour consultants aren't the ones making the decisions about what we can and can't have. They are really just the people who are closest, who serve us, and a lot of the time they probably disagree with what gets skimped on, but for the sake of their own jobs, they have to smile and nod and explain why the not-so-good deal is an excellent deal, in order to tow the party line. It's a business of sales, as much as any other. PD is a popular choice of late, and they have lovely floor plans. We first fell in love with the Atrium 36 that we viewed at Truganina, and when we found that they were building smaller houses now, we decided to take another look. And then, we were attracted to the 6-star energy rating, the solar hot water systems, and oddly, their inclusions are still better than quite a few other companies. We tried to look hard at Dennis Family Homes, but we just didn't feel the same way about the designs there as we did with PD, and the service we got at several Dennis offices was lacking. Metricon was our next choice, but PD ultimately gave us a better deal at the time, on land we wanted to live on. We discarded Carlisle as too expensive, Simonds as too cheesy, and shot Orbit down because their display centres were closed without notice in Mernda on days they promised to be open. I wouldn't have touched AV Jennings with a 10ft pole, and the materials and styles that National were using looked straight out of rejects from the early 1990s. As we were a couple choosing our first home to build, we wanted to be sure we agreed, so we implemented a tick system. Basically, after visiting a display home once or twice and examining the brochure, each of us was obliged to grade the home on a continuum: two ticks being the highest, zero ticks being the lowest (half ticks were also allowed). Anything that ended up with less than two ticks was discarded, and anything with three or more was moved to the shortlist. Our eventual decision was a four tick choice, and we had several of those in amongst PD. With PD, we found it was hard to pick just one floor plan because we liked them all. With the other companies, we'd be iffy on whether we liked any at all. And PD always came out on top. They still do. For all the miscommunications, I think our house is going to be lovely and I'm still happy with it. So what's the point of all the whinging? I guess, it's that you can't really get anything wonderful without a few headaches and a lot of $$$ these days and if you want it to be your dream home, then you have to push and push to make sure you are getting the right information, that you're getting in writing, and that you know how much it costs. Ask for item numbers, manufacturer names, etc. It'll get you nowhere if it's vague. Vagueness saw us with a designer basin, then not a designer basin, then a designer basin again... over and over. Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions. Always ask questions and never believe ANYONE unless it's written in your final contract. They aren't ****** to you on purpose--they're just confused, forgetful, tired or they simply don't know. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 27Feb 16, 2009 6:13 pm lazywriterbum This is the only page on the PD website that shows a photo of the Barwon facade: http://www.porterdavis.com.au/#homeviewer/flemington/v (click on the little green button in the bottom left of the main frame that says Barwon; because they are using flash and javascript I can't give a direct link, which is probably their attempt to avoid people stealing pictures). lol But seriously, if you're not happy now with the stuffing around, I think you are going to go insane in no time with that mob! Good luck A thankful person is a happy person. [/color]My hobby design blog: http://aviewondesign.blogspot.com/ Re: Misinformation and building a house. 29Feb 17, 2009 7:33 am mattydals isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again without getting a different result. Not quite... its doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result - which is not what you get with PD. There you do the same thing (discuss, negotiate) and get totally different answers depending on who you talk to, when you talk to them, and the cycle of the moon at that particular time. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 31Feb 17, 2009 10:30 am Ok people……lets be carful what we say about the builder!
Make it informative, without too much eye poking at PD. If you know what I mean. Thanks. Internal and External Building and Colour Consultant Online - Worldwide http://www.denovoconcepts.com Re: Misinformation and building a house. 32Feb 17, 2009 2:47 pm We're building with PD and this is our third build ( different builders every time)
We have found that once you get to site, there have been very few issues. Without being inflammatory, many people do not know what they want, change their minds, assume, and think that they should not have to pay the price they are quoted, because of course, they are being ripped off. Makes me wonder why some people pay builders when they know so much about it themselves. We went through lots of displays and similarly came up with PD at the end. We looked at the build quality of the display houses we went through, and we spoke to people in the area we were building in who also built with PD (easy walk around the estate you want to live in, we all want to talk about our homes ) Being in the same area means you are likely to get the same tradies. In each case, PD was not perfect, they had issues. BUT everyone of their issues was fixed, maybe not as fast as they'd like, but they were fixed and PD didn't argue with them about fixing them, again in most cases. You are going to get good and bad stories about every builder. Personally, I will never build with a custom builder again. I can tell you heaps of stories if you want to hear them, doesn't make all custom builders the same. What some people consider acceptable others don't. Difference and opinions make the world go around. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 33Feb 17, 2009 5:04 pm Well said Back Pocket. I totally agree. At the end of the day choice of builders will come down primarily to budget and floor plan. We are building with PD because the house we picked suits us and personally I love their finish. Their displays always stood out to me above others. We are having issues with them over a couple of things - post contract variations have taken over 2 months and contact from our CSC is erratic. At the end of the day though while it is frustrating I do believe it will be worth it in the end when I'm living in my beautiful new home. No matter what company you choose to build your home you will be dealing with individuals throughout the process and some will be good and some will be bad. That's just life Re: Misinformation and building a house. 34Feb 17, 2009 9:00 pm We are building with PD also and so far the experience has been great. Our CSC calls weekly just to check in and see if we have any questions. We have had a couple of PCV's and they have been acted on straight away on the day i.e. Form sent to us to sign. They have also being great and organised a site start for only two weeks since we settled on the land. All I can say at the moment is I can see why they have won the HIA award for most professional builder so many years in a row.
So for us they have being super and I can feel for the people who may not of had as smooth experience with them than what we are. Knock on wood our positive experience will continue with the build. Cheers Cozmo ___________________ http://fromevetoeternity.blogspot.com/ Re: Misinformation and building a house. 35Feb 18, 2009 6:41 am Our pre-build experience was mostly good. Our build was a total nightmare. BUT....we're happy with the house, and actually would still recommend PD, because: a) their houses are awesome; and b) we know that our experience was very unusual. All the other PD homes around us, and there are dozens, have gone along right on schedule and with no apparent problems. We must be jinxed.
I can tell you a million horror stories about certain other large builders who are also building in our estate....houses built to lockup or partly bricked, and then abandoned for 4-6 months are a common sight with two big builders here. The owners must be having heart attacks. Whoever you choose to build with, there's no guarantee that things will run smoothly. My advice is to expect the worst and hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 36Feb 18, 2009 6:44 am wonderland ...That was one of the reasons why we didnt go with PD. They do have beautiful houses, but by everything was an upgrade, and it wasnt cheap either!... That wasn't our experience. We found the inclusions were far better than the other builders we considered. And the promo added a lot of value extras. I guess it depends on what you want and who's offering the best deal (from your perspective) at the time. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 37Feb 18, 2009 10:32 am indeed. the PD promos (depending on when you buy) are really good value. the main reason we built with Henley is because the promo items from PD were standard inclusions for us.
oh and PD was going to cost us about $20k more for essentially the same sized house Re: Misinformation and building a house. 38Feb 18, 2009 11:36 am I think that inclusions advertised in the PD current promotion is worth $20K rather than the $30K they claim.
The worst thing about builders is that their house prices don't include: 1. Site Cost 2. Driveway 3. Landscaping These three things cost %10 of the actual house price (that is for medium size 52) .. Re: Misinformation and building a house. 39Feb 18, 2009 12:20 pm iTalk I think that inclusions advertised in the PD current promotion is worth $20K rather than the $30K they claim. That is true another big name builder does the same thing. When you look at the promo they have you need to remove the standard items from the list to get the true value. Hi All It has been a few weeks since my last update. The build has been progressing well. No major issues to report. The scaffolding was dropped today, gyprock will be… 96 357027 Building a fence now will help limit people dumping rubbish and soil on your property. Many houses in suburbia on small lots have fences up before a build. I moved into a… 1 4408 No idea about the driveway question, but your price for a house that size including landscaping seems very good! 1 6164 |